Fighting the Skill Building Rut

 creativity, learning
Jan 162013
 

Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve covered creating a learning path and learning from favorite artists.  But sometimes, for reasons known or unknown, we stall out. Our creative juices seem to dry up. We start beating our head against a wall. We start throwing up obstacles for ourselves, telling ourselves that we need to remove the obstacle before we continue on.

For me personally, I can always tell when I’m stalling out because I start checking out writing books from the library (and it’s getting harder to find ones I haven’t read yet) or I’ll start following more writing blogs and social media accounts. I’ll start re-reading and reorganizing my writing notes. I’ll even start finding ways to pass on what I know. (I’m avoiding a creative adaptation project at the moment, if you must know. *wink*) Eventually, I’ll realize what I’m doing and just force myself to start working on something.

It’s all right to get stuck for a bit. Putting distance between yourself and a project is actually one of the best ways to gain the insight you need to move forward. It’s not okay to stay stuck, though. When you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, ask yourself why. Do you feel like you need to learn more to proceed? Are you convinced you can’t continue without some specific tool, material, or resource?

Guess what. Those are self-imposed obstacles that we use to rationalize why we’re stalled on a project.

Once you’ve recognized how you’re rationalizing being stalled, it’s usually much easier to go back to work on the project. If you can’t, then work on a different project for a bit. Give yourself permission to take a break to clear the mental obstacles before trying to go back if you need to. It’s all right.

And before you know it, you will have moved past the rut, past the wall, past the excuses, and you will have conquered that skill or project.

Gaining a Creative Education By Studying Masters

 creativity, learning
Jan 092013
 

There are times in our creative development when we need or want to learn something and there’s no teacher or class immediately available. In this day and age, we have a lot of options at our fingertips. Libraries and online sites offer a wide range of resources or others who practice your art that you can turn to for advice, guidance, or even inspiration. Depending on your craft, you might be able to find a local group to work with.

This is also usually a good time to take a look at those in your field that you look up to. I don’t mean just go spend more time worshipping them and figuring out some cool (read: creepy) way to let them know how awesome they are.  I mean you need to sit down and really look at their work. Ask yourself what it is about their work that you enjoy? How do you react to it? Do you simply admire it? Does it inspire you in some way? Do your creative heroes do something in their work that you wish you could emulate in your own work? (Don’t knock it. Remember, emulation is a valid form of learning. It has been for centuries!)

When you take the time to study favorite artists in depth, you become an expert on them and learn more about how to develop the skills and techniques you would like to bring into your own work (once you’re past the apprenticeship phase of your study). You learn how to identify what makes their work theirs, and can from there figure out how to make your own work yours. You become familiar with their voice, and from that learn how to make your own voice shine through your work.

It doesn’t matter if you take several years or just a few weeks to learn what you need from your analysis. It just matters that you learn how to apply your analysis (rather than copy from the expert, which you will do at first).

Another thing to think about is that you most likely have more than one favorite artist in your field, which means you’re going to go through this process repeatedly. But because you are an individual, with your own personal favorites, you really will develop your own voice and style as you combine what you’ve learned from analyzing these artists because no one else likely has the same set of favorite artists influencing them.

Now, it’s your turn. Make a list of other artists in your field that you look up to. They can be professional or amateur. Next to each name, write down why you admire them. Then pick one to study, and don’t give up until you’ve figured out how to let your admiration of their work help make your own work better.

After I wrote this, I saw this great video by Nic Askew and DML Research Hub on mentoring. If this post has at all spoken to you (or even if it hasn’t), check it out!

Creating a Personal Learning Path

 creativity, learning
Jan 022013
 

Part of being an autodidactic learner is setting your own skill development course, and part of succeeding at actually developing the skill set you want is making some sort of plan. Creating your PLE is a great start, and it’s all well and good for managing the stages of your learning, but without some sort of overarching direction it’s really kind of pointless.

A friend recently asked how someone with diverse creative interests could help themself focus enough to really learn all those skills, and I shared with her the method I developed last year to help myself address that exact problem. When I started trying to organize some sort of learning plan, I happened to be playing the now-dead MMORPG Glitch. I’d been reading articles on how skill development was handled in WoW and how players had created guides to help new players find the best training paths for their chosen crafts, and I started thinking about how that worked in Glitch…and how I could make it work for me.

In both games, skills are grouped under some relevant grouping, and then they’re leveled from there, meaning if one skill requires another skill, that other skill must be mastered before the first one can be worked on. Sadly, this struck me as brilliant, despite the fact it’s good curriculum design on a very basic level. But I looked at Glitch’s skill development through this lens, and I thought about craft specialization and my own decisions about which skills to learn. (I eventually caved and learned them all.)

Then, I wrote down all of the skills I knew I wanted to develop to a usable level, and grouped them under heading that made sense to me. (I did end up with several skills that didn’t make it into a group, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that I don’t know enough about those skills to know where they truly fall.) Some of the skills overlapped or required skills from another list, but I silenced my inner archivist (who desperately wanted to cross-reference skills, especially when she figured out how to do it in GQueues) and settled for simply keeping an eye out for opportunities to apply newly acquired skills along the way. I then looked at the groups and sequenced the skills within each group based on when I would need them for later skills. (Does my inner curriculum designer show yet?)

It just so happened that right around the time I was building my skill tree (which is really more like a grove), I started a new notebook, so I was able to copy the entire tree onto the first page of the notebook for reference. Then, I selected a couple of the available skills and broke them out into more specific subskills with associated projects. As I’ve completed a subskill and its project, I’ve marked it off. When all of the subskills have been checked off and I’ve completed the mastery project for that skill, I’ll know it’s time to move on to the next skill.

How has this worked out for me so far? Not too badly, actually. I haven’t completed any of the skills yet, but I’ve made progress.  I’ve   worked on subskills and finished smaller projects for the skill I’m reconnecting with. I’ve learned the right questions to ask and the right subskills and projects to focus on for the skill I’ve been learning from scratch. I expect this year to actually complete a skill or two.

Do you have to do everything I did to organize your own learning plan? No. I have a lot of skills on my plate, so I took an approach that can address that in a manageable way. You might need nothing more than a basic outline.  But do take the time to put a learning plan together for yourself, and remember to stay flexible.

Your assignment (because all good curriculum design has to encourage you to go out and apply your new knowledge) is to make a list of skills you’ve been meaning to learn, and organize them into some sort of task list. Then pick out one, decide what it is about that skill you want to learn and how you’re going to prove to yourself that you have learned the skill. Then…start learning!

Extending the Life of Work

 creativity, learning
Nov 132012
 

There is something to be said for revisiting old work. Every time we create something, we should learn from the experience and carry that forward into the next project. Maybe we learned a new technique. Or maybe we experimented with techniques and approaches, finding a new way to do something. But we really don’t know if we don’t periodically review what we’ve done. Reflecting on old work also allows us to explore the topics or themes we’ve addressed more deeply, and to explore them through different lenses. When we take that closer look, we can identify patterns that we want to bring out and moments that inspire us as we continue on into the next project. Taking that moment to reconnect and reflect on past projects is what leads to skill development, creativity, and innovation in our work.

But gatekeepers, regardless of their medium, too often see a successful piece of work and want to hold on to that success. Untrained to really look for the fresh views a seasoned creator can bring (and it’s really interesting to hear long-time editors from publishing discuss this), the gatekeeper will insist on turning the initial success into a template for future success, the old “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset…that shuts down the creativity and innovation necessary to build a rich body of work.

The template can come in various forms. They may push for a sequel, regardless of whether or not the original work has the proper hooks built in to facilitate one. (It says something that advice to newer writers is starting to increasingly include a bit about making sure to build in hooks from the start.) The gatekeepers may also push for presenting the story in a different medium, regardless of how well it’s suited to that new medium. How many books do we currently have that have been turned into a movie, television, or video game property? How many video games?

So, who should address this divide between the growing creator and the (often unintentionally) stifling gatekeeper? It has to start with the creators pushing their work and their skills in new directions. We need to teach both gatekeepers and audiences to eschew trends and to learn to ask, “What’s next?”. Audiences are already expressing a restlessness for something “new”. After years of seeing favorite characters and worlds brave new media and poor sequels and adaptations, audiences are, in a sense, developing their own media literacy, information literacy, and imagination based on their consuming experience. But if creators have to keep rehashing work that was never meant to be rehashed, then they don’t get to develop their skills, and  then audiences can’t develop their ability to discern what they’re consuming.

Don’t Hold Back

 creativity, learning
Nov 052012
 

I read an article over the summer that outlined ten things that had been forgotten when creating blockbusters. The list included this gem: “make the first on a smaller budget and save the big budgets for later movies”.

Seriously? Someone really thinks movie producers should do that? What’s missing from this consideration is that first impressions still count, and a poor first impression may not open the door to the chance for the second impression – in this case, the sequel.

There’s a problem with this mindset, one that shows up in schools far too often. Somehow, we’ve become afraid of being expected to surpass ourselves on successive projects, which is where I think that first gem is routed. If we turn in a strong first showing, then we know that those who will be judging our future creations will expect our next efforts to be better. In school, this manifests as the child who works to a passing level on the grading scale or project rubric so they can appear to grow on the next project instead of working to their potential. In terms of creative work, it can manifest as a safe first attempt in order to secure the second project, where they promise they’re going to bring their full effort.

The problem is, once you get locked into that mindset, you make it all right within yourself to settle for mediocrity, and you can forget what you’re truly capable of.

An important part of the creation process is learning from what you’ve done and using those lessons to improve your craft as you create your next project. If you’re not pushing yourself to do your best every time you work on a project, then you’re stunting your own potential.

In my own teaching experience, more often than not when a student is actively gaming the grading system to minimize the expectations placed on him, it’s a child who is otherwise very ambitious. He already has their sights set high in terms of both his future education and career. But if he’s spent years teaching himself to only submit the bare minimum required to keep from being noticed, what do you think is going to happen when it’s time for him to need to be noticed?

We need to figure out how to encourage people, both children and adults, to not be afraid of being expected to be better in the future, to understand that by performing as best they can and then reflecting on that performance they are going to naturally present something stronger next time. We need to remove the fear of failure and the punitive assessments that can accompany sequels. Only then can we enjoy an explosion of creativity and innovation.

Cookie-Cutter Creativity

 creativity
Oct 302012
 

This is a rough period for creators. They work in their chosen media, spending hours to create projects that express themselves in their own way. And then the unthinkable happens: The project is accepted and loved by consumers.

I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t that kind of success what creators hope for when they release a project to audiences? Yes, it is. But that success often brings with it a handicap. While the creator may want to sit down and create a project that explores different techniques and topics, some marketing pro wants to get their hands on the creator and have them create more of the same. For the marketing professional’s perspective, it makes sense. People loved the first work and prefer the familiar, so they’ll love more of the same work from this creator. From the creator’s perspective, it might be fun to revisit a project and find a new, yet similar, way to explore the themes and elements present. That project may also have been designed to be self-contained, and now the creator is put in the awkward position of finding hooks where none were deliberately created. As the creator tries to meet the marketing pro’s request, the project becomes weaker and weaker because it’s being asked to sustain something it was never meant to sustain. Meanwhile, the creator finds time to work on what they intended to be the next project, and it can’t get the foothold it deserved because the first project was overextended beyond its intent.

For some reason, we’ve become expected to not accept standalone projects. Everything must be somehow familiar. And it happens in pretty much every single form of media.

Part of the problem is that downsizing has reduced the number of qualified people available to sift through submitted ideas to find the ones that really stand out. That job has now fallen to marketing departments looking for something that’s the next whatever-the-most-recent-major-success was, and that’s exactly the criteria they judge it by. They’ll go so far as to expect current creators to emulate those recently successful projects rather than focus on their own projects. As a result, rather than get those new perspectives, even from established, successful creators, we get repetitive drivel.

How does this clearly creative conversation fit in here? Well, I’d kind of expect that to be obvious. When we force those creating into these narrow molds, we stifle their creativity, robbing them of their ability to express themselves and share their ideas. And we stifle innovation as a whole by clinging to what’s worked in the past, even in a world that’s nothing like that past. All because we aren’t generally experienced enough to recognize the potential worth in a new idea.

Sequels and re-explorations do have their place, and can really add to a project when done correctly. But it’s good to hear new standalone stories, too.

Becoming a Producer

 creativity, learning
Oct 182012
 

There’s been a lot of talk in recent years in the odd behavior of kids. They whine and complain about how they hate school. They don’t want to learn. But then they get out of class and blow off their school homework to work on a story they’ve been writing or to get together with friends to make a video or to build a website for that cool new band they’ve discovered. (Let’s skip right past the part where this has actually been going on for years…)

These kids take it upon themselves to learn how to create, or produce, the kind of media they want to see. They look up the tutorials. They find the tools they need. They talk with other producers on fora related to their medium of choice. And they create, sometimes prolifically, occasionally well. They take it upon themselves to learn because they need that knowledge to do what they want to do.

And when they finish their current project or their interests change, then they find something else to create that will force them to learn more…willingly.

Many teachers recognize students’ desire to create, to express themselves through a medium of their choice, and attempts are being made to incorporate more production into assignments and projects, but it’s still being done so artificially in a number of cases that these students are just as tuned out.

The thing is, being able to produce, in different media, is a skill these students will need to survive in the world beyond school. They need to know how to select a topic and then how to focus in on just what they want to share or say. They need to be able to plan out how they’re going to do it, and then to do it. And we need to accept that they’re going to learn how to do it, whether from school or the streets (as it were). We really just need to enable them and give them relevant projects to work on.

The Elements in Music

 creativity
Sep 122012
 

I realize it sounds like I’m about to talk about composing music, but I’m beyond ill-qualified to be part of that conversation. (Honestly, as a kid I could ace any choreography assignment my ballet teachers gave me, and then turn around and fail every composition assignment my music teachers gave me. It was awesome.) What I am going to talk about is using music in my work, which I’m also very bad at, but I’m trying to figure it out.

One thing I’ve been really interested in, ever since I was a little girl, is symbolic associations. Colors, plants, animals, flags, heraldry. I always thought it was interesting how people (and countries) used things to represent them. What was even more interesting to me was how many cultures came to similar associations before coming into contact with a culture with similar associations, although a lot of that has to do with simple observation of the world than any inherently psychological connection.

About a year ago, I thought it would be fun to try to create a playlist that reflected each element. It seemed like such a simple prospect. Think about the qualities often associated with an element, and then find songs in my collection that reflected and evoked those qualities. It was so simple, in fact, that I avoided it up until I started working on fleshing out the monasteries in my story world. Each monastery reflects a different element, so I thought I’d work on each playlist as I worked on the monastery that shared the element. Kill two birds with one stone, as it were.

I’m working on the first pair at the moment, and I’ve come to realize some important things. The first is that I don’t have much in the way of music that would fire anyone up. The second is that various types of music will reflect an element all on their own. For example, we tend to think of folk music as being very earthy. It should come as no surprise. Folk music reflect a culture of people we would call “down to earth”, reflecting that connection. Flamenco music (my go-to when I just can’t find my own get-up-and-go) is considered spicy. Again, it’s no surprise as we consider the originating culture fiery. I haven’t figured out yet what the obvious air and water connections are, so feel free to add those in the comments.

Rip, Mix, Burn

 creativity, learning
Aug 242012
 

I’m so embarrassed. In all of my digital moving in the last year or two, I’ve lost past posts and notes on this particular phenomenon. So, if you’ve heard me talk about this in the past, any resemblance of this post to those past posts is amazing and means it’s stuck really far in my head.

Because of the popularity of anime music videos, mash-ups, and internet memes, we’ve all become pretty familiar with appropriation and the complications that come with it. For me, appropriations like this fall into one of two groups: fan reaction (with all the informal skill building that goes along with it) or commentary (no matter how uneducated it sometimes comes across as).

Appropriation is an important way to immerse yourself in learning because it forces you to take multiple looks at whatever it is you’re working with and to analyze it. What is going on? What personal reaction does this provoke? What does this remind me of, and how can I tie them together? It’s understanding, analysis, and creation, wrapped around a single project. And then others look at your creation and they think about their own understanding and reaction, and they either engage in conversation, share it with others, or create their own response.

Where appropriation gets tricky is when copyright lines are either approached or flat out crossed, and it’s a great argument for why we need to educated about copyright both as creators and consumers, about what constitutes plagiarism as opposed to commentary or satire. We can also talk about more flexible options like Creative Commons that help keep us reacting and responding without stepping on other people’s toes.

I thought I’d wrap this up by sharing a few favorite videos on remixing.

Better Living Through Journaling: Multitasking

 creativity, writing
Jun 262012
 

I know what you’re thinking after the past few weeks: Does she really expect me to carry around half a dozen books?

No, I don’t. Even I’m not that crazy (and I’m known for having journals on me). While a journal can be a life record, a tool for developing habits or learning skills, or a source of inspiration, there is nothing saying it can’t be all of them at the same time.

Crazy, right? I mean, how does anyone keep that all straight?

In my physical notebook, I number all of the pages. (Occasionally, I even manage to put a number on every single page.) Then when I need something from an earlier page for a later note, I write down the page number of the earlier note next to it so I can quickly find it. It’s a kind of low tech hyperlink, but it keeps me from having to rewrite notes. I also employ a color-coding system with highlighters and sticky tabs so I can quickly flip through and find related notes. So I can keep weekly to-do lists, project to-do lists, bits of writing, quotes I find and like, questions I want to explore, and discussions with myself all in the same place without going crazy.

In my digital notebook (because I do keep both and routinely back up my physical notebook to my digital notebook), I use a well-developed system of categories and tags to keep everything organized. I link where I need to, and I use text markup tools to help process my notes. (Font face, colored text, highlighting…all are useful if the system you are using allows them.) The digital notebook is particularly helpful for the learning and inspiration notebooks because most notetaking systems allow you to clip web pages, so you can clip tutorials, articles, videos, and images, and then organize them into what you’re working on.

At the end of the day, it’s your journal. Add to it what you want. Organize it how you want. Keep up with what you want. Make it work for you.

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